The shock treatment

Found this on weird universe.

It's literally shocking invention which is for smokers (who are trying hard to quit).



This lighter is supposed to deliver a shock every time you light a cigarette.

LOL.

Think about those "Have a light?" requests.... nobody is gonna light your cigarette for you.

TamTam

Have a look at this miniTamTam demo video.



I was amazed by the number of things kids can do with this application. The UI is so much intuitive that they can figure out most of the stuff by themselves. But that's not all about it. The best thing is, one can actually make some serious music using this.

When I see these typical toy laptops in market, I feel sad. They don't offer much beyond couple of prerecorded melodies and some cheap learn A-B-C doodles. So once kids are beyond learn A-B-C phase, these toys are no more fun for them. And for such things you have to pay atleast half of what OLPC costs.

I hope they come up with something as bright and as fun as OLPC for all the kids (or OLPC becomes easily available for buying). I would love to buy this for myself.

:-)

PS- TamTam is written in Python using pyGTK as the GUI library. It uses Csound as it’s sound engine. I have started admiring Python all the more now.

Return of the Tiger

Today I am feeling adventurous enough, so I decided to file my Income Tax return.... all by myself. The last year return filing was total disaster. I think I procrastinated for too long, and then to add to the problem I am lazy, so my last year's return was filed in January. That makes it about seven months late. But then, when you late, number of months don't really matter.

:-)

Anyway, that was what happened last time. But this time as a pleasant contrast, I decided to file my return on time. I wanted to hire somebody to do it for me. But since I am in Himachal right now, getting access to such agents is not easy. I saw couple of mails floating about (in our company newsgroup) online return filing. And I decided that today is the day to try it.

Now, I am doing this in parallel. I mean if I want to record my true feellings, I need to blog while actually filing the return. And thankfully the site is so enough to do this parallely.

6-30 PM Opened https://incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in
6-35 PM Page is visible... damn I need to open this in IE. Due to some problem or other these sites never work in firefox. Ahem!!
6-40 PM So IE it is. Page is loaded and I franatically look for the e-pay or e-file or something like that.
6-42 PM I see downloads and I jump for it.
6-50 PM I downloaded ITR-1 which is for individual or HUF (which is an excel sheet with macros)
6-52 PM I start filling in details. The form looks tedious and geeky. It says - Green cells are for data entry. Don not cut paste while dataentry. ITR--
:-(
7-00 PM Damn, what is my ward number? I have no clue. I don't have copies of last years return with me. I am soooooooo lost!
7-10 PM My brother told me to get the ward number from https://incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in/knowpan/knowpan.jsp
7-20 PM This page is taking forever to display result.
7-22 PM OMG, I think I downloaded wrong ITR form. The form says it's for 2008-09. Gah! need to click on e-Filing A.Y. 2007-08
7-25 PM Ok, I got the "right" form now. Also I downloaded itr1_excel_guide just in case. Now that has caused problem and that IE window is not opening.
7-30 PM I still don't know the ward number since the page is still not done.
7-35 PM I killed the IE and tried to open the excel guide link again.
7-40 PM Damn, Damn Damn, It opened the pdf document, but now my mouse has stopped moving. I am using only keyboard to navigate right now.
7-45 PM Thankfully things became better when the whole pdf download was complete. I should have saved the file instead of opening it in IE. :-( Anyway, I did that now.
7.47 PM So now I have the right form and the guide as well. I am all set.
7-55 PM This form is equally frightful and the guide file is scarier that the form. I tried to read the guide but abondoned the idea after going through 7 pgaes. (It has total 54 pages).
7-57 PM This was trying enough to make me hungry. /me goes off to eat something.
8-15 PM Burp! I am back to tackle the forms now.
8-25 PM Excel sheet has five tabs. I am done with the first tab. The guide says click on next button which is seen in the top portion of the form.
8-27 PM The button is not getting pressed. After 8-9 attempts I somehow managed to click the button. It switched to second tab and flashed this
"The cell or chart you are trying to change is protected and therefore read-only."
8-30 PM I still decide to go ahead and try it.
8-31 PM Ok, I am able to fill is details. I think some cells are marked read-only by IT dept. and they are throwing warning.
8-50 PM Sigh.... I am done with filling in details as per Form 16A
9-00 PM Huh, next page is asking for tax paid details. My form 16 doesnt have bank name and branch name. Do I need to fill in this?
9-05 PM I decided to validate the pages which are already filled. OMG, page 2 shows refund of 823426 Rs.
9-20 PM I have checked everything twice already and still don't understand how the self-assessment tax is calculated in this excel sheet.
9-30 PM I have no clue about how to fix it.
10-00 PM I am going to check with some CA tomorrow.

:-(

Sinful Khatta Meat

I am not really known for my cooking skills. In fact, people are wary of my cooking, since they need to praise it (sometimes even if things don't taste good). The things I cook mostly involve about 30 minutes of cooking time. I firmly believe that, if something can not be cooked in 30 minutes, then it's not worth trying it.

:-)

Given choice, I would always avoid any of those meat recipes (especially Indian once). All of them consist elaborate steps and they take forever to complete. But when I tasted this Khatta meat, it made me want to try it myself. My father-in-law cooks this with such a finesse, that it's lip smacking taste lingers on for days together.

If you like your meat with a bit of zing, then this recipe is for you. It's sinfully dark (black with a hint of green) and just enough sour (to give you a kick). It doesn't need too many spices, just a bowl of good fresh meat and lots and lots of patience. So try this recipe, if you have at least four hours to spare.

Ingredients:

1. Meat (cut into medium size pieces) : 1 kg
2. Onion (coarsely chopped) : 500 gm
3. mustard oil : 200 gm
4. bay leaves : 2-3
5. garlic (crushed) : 15-20 cloves
6. ginger (finely chopped) : two inch piece
7. coriander seed powder : 2 tablespoons
8. Asafoetida : two pinches
9. turmeric powder : 2 teaspoons
10. Aniseed (sounf) : 4 tablespoons
11. fenugreek seeds (roasted and crushed): 1 teaspoon
12. green cardamom (make a slit in each) : 8
13. aamchur : 8 tablespoons
14. Daikon Radish or mooli (take only white part and cut into 1 inch long pieces): 250 gm (this is not mandatory)
15. Salt as per taste

How to get going:

Take big enough pot (I use one big 24cm dia dutch oven), so that the meat can be mixed easily. It is very important to choose right pot. It must have heavy bottom since traditionally this meat is cooked for long hours on low flame. If your pot is not thick enough, it will start burning the meat towards midway.

Heat the pot and pour mustard oil. Once oil is hot enough (you should be able to see a sort of smoke rising), put onions and saute for about two minutes until onion turns transparent. Add meat pieces and salt (will need about two spoons) as per taste and mix it well.

Let it cook for about 60 minutes (yes, you got it right) on the lowest flame possible. You need to keep stirring it every five minutes or so. Add Daikon Radish pieces and let it all cook for another 30 minutes. You will need to stir the mixture once in a while to avoid burning. Once it starts boiling, the onions will slowly dissolve and meat pieces will release juice. The pieces are to cooked in their own juices. The sauce will be reduced until oil is released.

Keep track of the meat. Once you see oil separating in the mixture, check if the meat is cooked. If meat is not cooked then you will need to put meat pieces in pressure cooker to cook separately. Try not to add too much water as it will need more time to reduce it later. If meat is cooked too early while mixture it still watery, take out the meat pieces and then reduce your sauce. If you continue to cook "cooked" meat further it will break into very small pieces.

Once meat is cooked and oil is released, add the spices - coriander seed powder, asafoetida, turmeric, aniseed, fenugreek seeds, ginger, garlic and bay leaves. Mix the mixture until oil separates further. When it becomes sort of dry, add aamchur and cook for another 10 minutes.

Now the dry meat is ready. (You can eat this stuff as starter as well. It tastes yummy). Add water (and salt, if needed) as much required for curry and let it boil for about 10 minutes.

Tadah, your mouthwatering khatta meat is ready. Enjoy it with plain rice.

What's cooking today?

Nowadays, the most difficult problem for me is to plan for food at home. I dread the time when my cook comes and asks me "What should I cook today?".

It's due to number of reasons. I never get enough time (mainly due to lack of interest) to find out inventory in my kitchen. Buying stuff in supermarkets is my favorite time-pass. I also enjoy buying vegetables from the street market. It's so much fun. You can roam around aimlessly and decide on which vendor has the freshest vegetables. Also there are so many vegetables out there that one can plan for the meal right there. I love deciding what to cook depending on what vegetables I see in market. Not to mention that I end up buying veriety of things whenever I go for veggie shopping.

Though I like to buy vegetables, I don't get to do that. Our new house is bit far from the market place, so I rarely go for vegetable shopping. Thus I never know what's available either in home or in market. There are very few dishes which one can make without any advance notice, so I have no choice but to choose from one of the vegetables available at home. In short, we end up eating bread-butter from breakfast, beans for lunch and capsicum for dinner (ok, sometimes we cook peas too).

Sigh!

Couple of days back, when I was looking at my outlook meeting calendar, one idea struck me. I decided to prepare a complete menu for breakfast, lunch, dinner for a week. This way, my cook can stock the required vegetables and preplan the soaking, boiling et al. and the biggest relief is that he won't have to come to me to ask the same question everyday.

Deciding what to eat is such a big challenge. When we don't notice, we can afford to gobble as many calories as we can. But when things are put down on paper, the whole equation changes. One becomes extremely "health" conscious. Hmm, if I have aloo-paratha for breakfast, I should have only salad in night. OMG, How can I have Rajma four times a week? And the list goes on....

It took me whole three days to plan the menu, but I am happy with the outcome. It looks colorful and delicious (at least on paper). Now that I am done with it, it will keep on repeating (until we get bored of it).

Lovely Himachal

Last summer when we were in Himachal it was pretty dry. I distinctly remember our trip to Chamba. The road to Chamba travels through series of mountains. All the mountains were so dry and bare, it reminded me of Bandipur forest in summer.

But this time, things were different. Thanks to pre-monsoon, everywhere I can see lush green mountains. And I am not complaining....

You suck at photoshop

ROFL!

I have to admit that I do suck at photoshop after watching these tutorials.




LOL

New kid on the blog

To be frank, there was no time to write even a single blog entry, forget about starting a new blog. Making babies is one hell of a time consuming job. But I still thought that, it would be a good idea to keep baby-related-cribbing away from this blog. The point is, people who don't like to hear about other people's children (I am one of them) can steer away from the whole thing altogether.

Kidding!

Actually there is so much to write about the baby stuff, that I decided to start a new blog. It's going to be kinda diary of growing-up-of-Pari (at least I have planned it to be so far). I hope that she will have good fun, when she gets to read it some day.

I always wished that I had more memories of my childhood. But all I have got are few old photos and some certificates from school - no toys, no old notebooks, no dresses. So I am going to put together small small and totally irrelevant things happening with us.

I hope she would like to know about her childhood some day. It's going to be bizarre, since all I can do is "cribbing".

:-P

So if you are interested in knowing about what's going on with our little princess, then do click on this.

PS - Some seriously boring stuff can be expected, so avoid urge to click -- if you are in no mood to doze off right now.

Natural Fractal

Awesome!

blogspot template

Thumbs up to the new blogspot template editor...

Now it is so simple to customize the blog template and add all that fancy stuff that I already feel like a web developer.

:-)

A must try!